


Frozen in a Moment

by loveamongstars



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Battle, Freezing, Gen, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 14:15:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18500674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveamongstars/pseuds/loveamongstars
Summary: It was her first real big fight. The first time in a war. It was her first chance to shine, to prove herself. She was ready, to fight and to win, but she was not ready for...all of this. When she froze in battle, her first exposure to war turned out differently than Vers expected.





	Frozen in a Moment

Left, right, left, right, left right. It had a repetitive, soothing quality about it. After left, right came, after right, left. It never failed. It never failed until the march reached its destination: War. The by now familiar thrum of rhythmic marching was interrupted by reaching the destination. The wall of warriors came to an abrupt halt, one Vers was not exactly used to. She was surrounded by other people. Usually, she was able to see the destination. Usually, she was able to anticipate the stop. This time there were too many Kree. For a second her shoe slid, already ready to take the next step when everyone came to a resounding stop. For a moment she e her slip up would be heard through all their ranks. The almost perfect silence forced her to almost listen to her own breath. 

Vers dared to look around. She was surrounded by warriors. To her right stood her commander Yon-Rogg. To her left stood the imposing figure of Bron-Char. Neither of them moved. Nobody seemed to move. Except for her. Vers shuddered. The tension was high, almost tangible, as if there was electricity in the air around them, like a lightning strike building up, getting ready to strike, to destroy. Her eyes were still on Bron-Char when a single sound got everyone to move, to charge.

She ran slightly behind her two teammates as the green and black Kree soldiers charged at the enemies, like a green tsunami, ready to overrun the enemy. She had no way to even see the enemy.

The moment the two armies met was like an eruption of sound. One moment there was only the sound of a charge, suddenly it was mixed with voices, screams, shots, and explosions, never stopping, never decreasing in volume. The temperature rose as the air was pierced by bullets, energy blasts and whatever else they brought as weapons, all of them heating the air around them. Nobody seemed phased by It. By now she caught glimpses of the enemies as the waves mixed, some coming close enough to be fought one by one, some being held at back by firepower. Vers had her own gun, pointing it at one after the other enemy, just before they fell to the ground. Vers never pulled the trigger herself, someone always beat her to it.

Everything spun as she tried to aim, moment after moment from one enemy to another. She saw some structures around them but took no notice of them aside from the fact that they seemed on fire, smoke rose from them. Coughs joined the many sounds she heard. Breathing stung as the wind turned to blow some of the smoke towards her. Her eyes stung with the smoke. For a moment everything blurred. Vers turned her head to not get the smoke directly into her eyes. She raised a hand to try and shield her eyes a little. 

She was looking down as she could focus again. It was then that she saw it. All sounds seemed to cease to exist. The war around her seemed to stop. It was a tiny thing. Its edges were charred. Once it might have been colorful, full of life and joy, someone getting frustrated over constantly picking it up and putting it back where it belonged. It would always find a way back onto the ground. It was on the ground now, dirty with smoke and charred edges. There was no sign of the one it belonged to. There was no sign of anyone to pick it up again and put it back where they belonged. Nobody was here to pick it up. Vers bent down to pick it up. Someone had to pick it up. Her eyes stung, her hands shook. Her breathing had become fast, almost labored as she fought against a weight that seemed to constrict her lungs.

There was a sound, dull, but with a sense of urgency. Urgency… She remembered something was important, besides the tiny thing now in her hands. Something hit her. The thing had a tint of blue. Vers reached up to her face. Her hand was blue, too. Blood. Why was there blood?

“VERS!” she heard a scream, female. She looked around, immediately finding the source of the blood on her. Yon-Rogg was on the ground, gasping for air. The sounds were back. It was his blood, that was now staining the earth. And the woman who had screamed at her was Minn-Erva, who knelt beside him, hands pressed to an extensive wound. She looked around at Vers again. “Ah, you’re back! Can you at least get him out of here, or are you even too useless for that?” Vers stomach cramped up even more. What had happened? The wounds looked bad, but she heard the shots and explosions around them. She had to get him out of here. Without truly thinking about it, her hand put what she had found into her pockets as she moved to grab Yon-Roggs suit, prepared to start to drag him back, back to the ships. She tried, hard, not to think about the trail of blood they left behind, all of which his.

Once there the medics took her from him. Each of the ships had a team on standby and one out on the field to make taking care of those wounded in battle as effective as possible. They were, of course, all trained in fighting as well, to be able to defend themselves. They had to. It was so easy for them to get hurt in this. A groan came from Yon-Rogg. She was almost in motion, wanting to get to him when she remembered that no, it was the medics who had him now. It was better if she stayed back. She turned around to rejoin the battle, feeling like she had to when one of the medics reached out for her and gently turned her back around.

“Stay put here, soldier.” Vers nodded. It was automatic, in a way. She listened now because her commander was down and the second in command was somewhere out there. Chances were one of them outranked her substantially. And in truth, she had no idea what to do. She was trained to fight, but she had just failed at that. Her first real fight in this war and she failed. And she didn’t even know how badly Yon-Rogg was injured. She didn’t know if he would even survive this. She wasn’t trained in medicine. Vers looked around and found a spot to lean against, looking outside. She reached into her pocket to find the thing again. Why did she freeze over it? It was an inanimate object! She hadn’t even seen the person it belonged to. Why did she freeze? It just did not make sense for her.

Hearing the fight outside, knowing her training, Vers closed her eyes. She couldn’t stay. She was here to serve her people. And she had to. Grabbing her gun again, Vers did not let anyone stop her as she went out to fight. This time she was in the back. This time she could actually fight. This time her fear had her in its grasp, but she didn’t let it win. She didn’t allow anything to distract her, because there was another feeling inside her. 

Only after the fight could she put a name to the feeling: Rage.

-*-*-*-

Looking back to the fight, things had gone at a surprisingly variable pace for Vers. Everything leading up to Yon-Roggs injury seemed to take place in slow motion, whereas everything else seemed to happen way too fast. Minn-Erva did not speak a word to her. Bron-Char assured her, that they all just needed time to unwind and recover after this. She used that time to train. She ran for as long as she could, was in the gym as often as she could and tried to avoid everyone, aside from those sparring with her. It was not the same as sparring with Yon-Rogg. These opponents were going through the motions. There was no comfortable banter, no questions about nightmares, no friendly jabs.

“Vers!” she heard the familiar voice of her teammate Bron-Char. She turned around at what sounded like what could become an order. “Yon-Rogg is asking for you.” Vers paled at that piece of information.

“I am sure that doesn’t mean he wants to see me”, the woman said and turned back to her training.

“Rephrasing that: Yon-Rogg, your commanding officer, demands your presence!” He left no doubt in this: Yon-Rogg wanted to see her and not coming would probably equal disobeying a direct order. She had to go. She could not disobey an order from her commanding officer. She still went to at least refresh herself a little bit. The cold water in her face helped at least to get her head thinking clearer than a minute before. This was perhaps the talking to she had expected since they came back.

The room smelled sterile when she came in. The windows were open, revealing the busy city outside, letting in the light. It felt almost inviting. She inched into the room slowly, not sure what to expect. His bed was rather large for a bed in medical, but he was a commander and it seemed like it was needed. There were quite a few machines around him, tubes leading to his body in multiple places. She had no idea what they were for but from the top of her head. He was sitting up, a tablet in his hands, but he was already looking at her. A smile appeared on his pale face. She was honestly confused why he smiled like that like he was happy to see her more than she had anticipated.

“You asked to see me,” she commented, trying to keep all emotions out of her voice, but utterly failing at it, she feared. 

“Of course. Nobody told me what had happened to you. Are you okay?” Why would he ask that of her? Of all things? She got him injured. She was the reason he was in here! There was no mistaking that. The team made that abundantly clear.

“I am not injured.” She answered simply. Anything else would resemble a lie. She was not okay. How could she be after failing so miserably? She didn’t even know if she could continue to serve her people!

“Vers, answer the question!”

“Is it not an answer?” She turned to look at him, she face a mixture between defiance and pain.

“In a way it is. You’re not okay. You might not be injured, but you are not okay.” Vers turned around, looking out the window because she could not bear to look at him. His face was soft and seemed understanding. She could not bear that. He should be angry at her failure. He should be angry at the injury he sustained because of her. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t angry.  
“I froze, too. You know, the first time I was in a war.” That made Vers turn around. He froze? How could he possibly freeze? He was the born fighter.

“You?”

“Yes, me. I trained hard. I knew the motions, all the strategies, I was prepared. I was prepared to see soldiers hurt and all of that. I was not prepared for all the noise coming together. I was overwhelmed and I froze. And you froze.” The noise was something she was not actually prepared for, but she could take it. Apparently, he couldn’t back then. And it was… understandable. “Why did you freeze?”

“There was a… sock. Of a baby.” Vers felt a little bit of shame creep up in her. He had spent ages just teaching her to control her emotions and they got the better of her. This one baby sock had thrown her off a lot. Strangely enough, it seemed to make him smile, albeit a little sadly.

“We will have to work more on that control of yours. But Vers, this was your first fight, do not beat yourself up about it. Channel it into training harder, especially your control.”

“I bet you regret declaring me fit for this one.” Vers came a little closer to the bed, relaxing a little now. She could finally relax enough to really take in his stats. His heartbeat was steady and strong, the meds pumped into him were to ensure a fast and safe recovery.

“Vers, no. Absolutely not! You proved yourself, in some ways.” That surprised her. She felt the heat in her cheeks and a little bit of a queasy feeling inside her stomach. It didn’t make much sense to her at that moment. It was downright confusing. He got hurt because of her.

“And what ways would that be?” 

“You protected a team member. And after seeing me to safety you returned to the fight. I heard it all, Vers. It was not bad for your first fight. We have to work to do, surely, but there is potential.”  
Vers smiled a little. Her heart still thumped heavily, but it was noticeably slowing down. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she had pictured. Maybe there was worse.

“I’ll learn control.”

“Yes, you will.” He gave her a smile. Vers turned around to leave. Yon gave her one last remark: “Don’t break the other guy!”


End file.
